80-year-old accused of bank robbery has decades-old record

PHOENIX (AP) – The lanky, bespectacled man walked into a bank in a strip mall on Tucson's northern edge with a gun, demanded that a teller hand over an undisclosed amount of cash and made his escape on foot.

Experts say the heist last week at the Pyramid Federal Credit Union branch represents a rarity in the world of bank robbery: The suspect, who was arrested the next day, is 80 years old.

And as it turns out, suspect Robert Francis Krebs has a decades-old criminal record for stealing from banks, including a 1981 robbery in Florida in which a branch manager and a teller were handcuffed and left in a vault.

Robert Francis Krebs served more than 30 years in prison for the bank robbery near Orlando and has a 1966 conviction in Chicago for embezzling $72,000 from a bank where he worked as a teller. He also did time for theft and armed robbery convictions from Arizona dating back to 1980.

He was released from prison in Florida last summer and has since been found to have violated his probation because he didn't disclose his whereabouts to authorities, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

Krebs, whose is jailed on a $50,000 bond, was booked on suspicion of armed robbery in the Tucson, Arizona, robbery. It's unclear whether Krebs has yet been assigned an attorney.

William J. Rehder, a retired FBI bank robbery expert who isn't involved in Krebs' case, said it's unusual for elderly people to carry out robberies. Typically, bank robbers are in their 20s.

Rehder said Krebs' motivations are likely two-fold: He misses the thrill of pulling off a bank job and needs money, given that he's an octogenarian with little potential to earn money after spending decades in prison.

"This guy sounds more like he is hooked on the action," Rehder said.

Krebs isn't the oldest bank robbery suspect.

Rehder pointed out the case of J.L. Hunter "Red" Rountree, who had been dubbed America's oldest bank robber.

Rountree was convicted of committing robberies at banks during the late 1990s and early 2000s in Mississippi, Florida and Texas. He committed two robberies in his mid-80s and was 91 at the time of his last heist. He died in federal prison a few months before his 93rd birthday.